Prosopopoeia
by Maya Sushi
Summary: Let's pretend. You return home after 3 years of being gone and you think maybe you'll get shot for desertion. And a lot of stuff has happened, horrible, painful things but here's your little brother and he's laughing and hugging you and maybe it's okay.
1. Prologue

_**Disclaimer: **_I should write a disclaimer jingle. I think it would be catchy. III dooon't oooown.

_**A/N: **_Okay, the thing about this story is that I'm trying a whole different style of writing. And I like writing like this. I wanted to jump from situations and provide things in blunt descriptions and factual explanations… I think. It's also very… Well, it takes a long time. Because I don't _know_ many factual things about random items, I mean, maybe a little bit, but I go on about doorknobs in the beginning of this chapter and I definitely don't know anything about doorknobs. Do you see what I mean by… Well, you'll see. I actually have to make sure I research about things and get things right in all aspects. It's actually cool learning weird little tidbits about things too. Anyway, if you read, pleeeeease pleeeeease review this, because I really want to know what you think about it!

Okay, so the timeline for this… Let's say… It's post-anime, but there's no Conqueror of Shamballa happening, and it's not going to, I mean, it didn't. It starts off with Ed returning home after being gone for three years. And yes, he still did get sent to our world. But what happened to him there and how he got back is different. Yes? I make a reference to an American rifle used during World War II, and that's not related to Amestris in any way, nor am I attempting to relate it to Amestris in any way. Alrighty? I'm just making mention of World War II because that's going to be important later.

Enjoy. (please) haha.

***

_**Prologue**_

The Truth told me I would be allowed to keep living and the next thing I know I'm thinking, oh god, what did it do to me?

I'm staring down this shining silver door handle as if this is some sort of contest.

The average doorknob is 2.25 inches in diameter. Circular shaped doorknobs are the most common, even though they are considered the hardest to turn. Those easy to turn egg shaped ones aren't pretty enough for our doorways. The basic components of a doorknob are a knob rose, shank, spindle, and knob top. All complicated parts that lead to a twist of the wrist and an unlocking of a latch. Brass doorknobs are typically forged, that's molten metal poured into a mold. Forging makes 250% stronger doorknobs than metal casting does.

Imagine you're standing on a porch, nervous and anxious, and now you're going through what you know about doorknobs in your head. Is it making you feel any better?

Well? Is it?

And you're pretty sure that the metal casting of the silver knob rose, shank, spindle, knob top, 2.25 inch sphere in front of you just won the contest.

The Truth told me I would be allowed to keep living, and then there was mush and shit-covered silk and wispy pink sea creatures and Toxic Mega colon super-villains.

And doorknobs that were round and 250% less strong and maybe if this one was egg-shaped it would be easier to turn.

Brass has to be at around 1700 degrees Fahrenheit to melt. Imagine the kinds of burns you might get with your mouth as a mold.

My throat stung, raw with unspoken words. A person can go mute or deaf or blind because of some sort of extreme trauma in their lifetime.

I knocked on the door.

There's a moment between every moment when the world stops and lets the person stuck there have a good long taste of what it truly feels like to be in a nerve-wracking situation. Now take that, and multiply it by 3 years of being MIA and by the square root of self-doubt and the worst luck in the world. Welcome to my in between moments moment. Make yourself at home. Sorry there are no comfy chairs here. This moment ends, however, and another begins. Like a stage crew member working the lights and waiting for their next cue so they can change the stage from light to black. Light travels faster than sound.

"E-… Ed? B-Brother?"

I wasn't ready for the cue.

Next, the moment comes in which your whole world will either come crashing around you in a puddle of grief and regret, or you'll find out you were stressing out over this moment much too much. Sometimes it's somewhere in between.

There's jellyfish and lies and 3 years and 1700 degrees of temperature balled up in a lump at the top of my throat. I can't find it in me to make anything close to an intelligent noise. I imagine pigs grunting and wonder if that's what would come out of my mouth if I would have made an attempt to talk. I'm comparing myself to a pig again and the Truth is telling me that I'm allowed to keep living, and I'm still thinking, oh god, what did it to do to me?

I look at my brother's face and the first thing I see is his gray eyes looking straight into mine. I'm overwhelmed. Have you ever been overwhelmed? And the second thing I notice is that I'm looking down and he still has a baby face and I'm taller than him. And I haven't seen my baby brother in so long but still he shouldn't be this small, shouldn't be this young looking. Then I see his expression and it's confused and thoughtful and not at all what I would expect it to be. I should see judgment, anger. I deserted him after all. Sometimes soldiers in the war would be shot for desertion, sometimes even put up in front of a firing squad made up of men from their own regiments. He takes another moment to look at me and I'm still not able to make any kind of a noise, and then he puts up one too-small finger and says, "Wait a second."

Then the door shuts and I think about desertion again.

"Back," and the door opens and Alphonse is standing at the door with a M1941 Johnson Rifle, one of those American short-recoil operated semi-automatic ones. Designed by Melvin Johnson before the war even started. The recoil on those guns are less perceived than some of the others, because it uses the initial recoil to shoot. But I'm getting off topic.

Then, he shoots me. Like a soldier. For desertion.

"There," he says, gray eyes flashing, "that's what you get."

Except that doesn't happen, and I'm staring at that 2.25 inch, 250% less strong, definitely not egg shaped doorknob with the silver casting again. And it wants a rematch.

I wouldn't be surprised if he did open the door with a gun. I mean, that doesn't seem like Al, but I did desert him. It takes me a moment to realize that that's not what I'm expecting him to do, that's what I want him to do. People need closure, right? I'd say he deserved his. Who knows how much pain I really caused him. A person can go mute of deaf or blind because of some sort of extreme trauma in their lifetime. I think it would be okay if Alphonse killed me. I think I'd be okay with that. The only reason I keep trying so hard to stay alive is for him. So if he killed me, I don't think I'd put up a fight.

A single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked human flesh every minute.

16 pigs can go through a 200 pound man in about eight.

Of course you have to starve the pigs first, so that the flesh looks really tasty to them. They go through bone like butter you know.

Now I'm comparing myself to a pig again.

Pigs have a full set of 44 teeth, and they never stop growing. They just grind and sharpen on each other as they keep going. If pigs become very distressed, they can eat their own young.

Pigs are actually very close to humans. Sometimes their skin is used to help burn patients. They raise the pigs in really clean areas, and then they take their skin and stitch it to some human who can say for the rest of their life that they have real pig skin attached to their body. Except they probably won't because that's gross. Isn't it? Who cares if it saved their life. That's gross. Isn't it?

Their organs are similar to a human too.

I think this is funny. All of it. Maybe a pig is more like a human than I am.

But I don't have any more time to think about me and pigs and humanity, because Alphonse is opening the door for real this time. And I don't think I already know what he's going to say, but I want to. So I listen.

The ear has three main parts. The outer, middle, and inner ear. Whoever came up with those names deserves some sort of reward. The outer ear opens up into the ear canal, the eardrum separates the outer ear from the middle, and small bones in the middle ear help to transfer sound to the inner ear. In the inner ear is the auditory nerve, that one leads straight to your brain.

So let's pretend, your brain sends this message, and it's saying "Listen,". So you're sitting on a porch, nervous and anxious, and going through what you know about ears. Is it making you feel any better?

Well? Is it?

You sit there waiting for your brother to make some sort of sound. Any source of sound and there's vibrations and sound waves going into your ear. These little things funnel down through that canal in your outer ear and strike your eardrum, making that vibrate too. The vibrations pass through those tiny bones in your middle ear, which transmit them to the auditory nerve in your inner ear. These vibrations, here, become nerve impulses, that go all the way to your brain, and get conceived as sound. So none of this is really getting heard. Well it is, but.

We're all just speaking in vibrations.

So now you can see yourself, straining forward, nervous and anxious, waiting for some sort of vibration, and all that happens is your gray-eyed, too-young little brother you haven't seen in three years that should be beyond pissed at you drops this piece of paper he had in his hand and steps onto the porch into the night to give you a bone-crushing hug. And he starts laughing.

Now I could go into laughing too. It's a whole other process. But the end result is still the same, little vibrations spinning through the air and ending up falling down into that canal that leads to your eardrum, and hitting it like a hammer. Sending millions of different reactions that keep on going until your brain finally gets what its been waiting quite patiently for since it told you to "Listen," and now you're hearing the sound of your baby brother's laugh and it's been three years and you love him so much and you're so, so, so relieved he isn't mad at you. And you almost feel like you have to take a deep breath because of all these thoughts going through your head all at once and it's almost like sitting and talking, and talking, and talking in some sort of run-on sentence that just never stops. Except there's a period there. So this hug has to end eventually right?

Let's stop pretending. I hate pretending.

I let go of Alphonse when he tries to pull away and I watch him wipe a tear from his face and it's a happy tear and that makes me happy too. Suddenly I realize that my own cheeks are wet and I touch my cheek hesitantly with my right arm, I try to be gentle, because I can't really feel it.

Look, a happy tear of my own.

How cute.

He's laughing still and I'm looking down at the piece of paper that he dropped before he hugged me and it's a picture.

There's me and big-suit-of-armor Al, standing in a desert, smiling up a storm.

I look at not-in-a-suit-of-armor Al and I'm smiling up a storm. Because there's jellyfish and shit covered silk and golden rods and gods and lies and 3 years and arms and the Truth and pain and horror and Toxic Mega Colon super-villains stuck somewhere around here. But none of that stuff matters right now, we'll get to that later. Right now, it's just me and Al.

Let's pretend again.

Lots of stuff happened, and you're so terribly scared about telling any ounce of it to anyone, but you know you will, and you're so terribly scared about what they're gonna think, and you know they will. You know, think. And you're so terribly, terribly scared.

And he told you he liked your eyes. And then there were needles and blood and death.

A person can go mute or deaf or blind because of some sort of extreme trauma in their lifetime. Imagine not being able to hear these little vibrations anymore.

And the Truth told you you would be allowed to live and then you were thinking, oh god, what did it do to me.

But that's okay right now, because here's your gray-eyed, too-young, baby brother, not-in-a-suit-of-armor Alphonse in front of you and there's no doorknob with silver casting staring you down. It's just you and him.

And all that can come later.

You can be scared later, and you can be scared before, but not right now.

Right now.

It's just you and him.

Let's stop pretending. I hate pretending.

It's just me and him.

Me and Al.


	2. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: **_NOOOO!

_**A/N:**_ Can I just disclaim the whole story? I'm pretty sure I can, maybe I won't, just because it's a habit for the first thing for me to write be "disclaimer" now. Maybe I'll be writing a story for English and I'll write "disclaimer" and then start my story. Anyway, this chapter... Went through a lot. I definitely wasn't sure at all what I should include in this chapter. I was trying to write up a sort of plan on what to include in each chapter and I just couldn't decide. There's so much for you to know, readers! I don't know where to start. But I'll just start somewhere. Here. Well, not here, but... Down there. Okay?

I'm not sure about the German. But I'll tell you what it says later. I tried to find the best translation I could. I hope it's moderately accurate.

* * *

_**Chapter Two**_

"Your eyes, boy, I said, what the hell is with your eyes?"

So I say, what are you talking about? I'm on orders here and he's in my way and asking me stupid questions. There just eyes, I say, you've got a pair too. Want a mirror?

He doesn't like my attitude, so he slaps me across the face and I bite my cheek. My tongue flicks around my mouth and I taste blood on my teeth. You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick.

Heterochromia. That is, a condition in which an individual's irises differ in coloration. Eye color is caused by how much pigment is made in the front part of the eye. Little or no pigment and you have blue eyes, lots and you have dark eyes, maybe brown or black or gray. Anywhere in between means you have some middle amount of pigment, the less the lighter, the more the darker. The amount of pigment is determined by a gene called melanocyte. Heterochromia is most commonly caused by a lost melanocyte or a failed gene that will not "work".

No, this isn't what I am thinking. Nor is it what I _was_ thinking. But it is, however, topical. You'll just have to trust me on this one. Take my word, you know, and all that. Topical.

The eye is extremely resilent. It is pretty much designed to withstand most outside contaminates.

Blink.

Just blink it out.

Hudin. Ich hoffe, duin der holle verro hen mit ihren dummen frogen.

He looks ready to hit me again, I spit some blood at his feet. You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick.

Ich habeden strikten befehl. Ich bin hier nicht erlaubt.

I cringe at my awful German accent. It doesn't get by the man either. He narrows his eyes.

It only takes one muscle to blink.

I can practically see his thought process now, and I know this is bad.

Blink.

His frown deepens and I speak again. Fake confidence.

Blink.

Holle aus meinem weg.

Imagine. Your standing all five feet nine inches on your tippy toes and there's this freakish, probably ten feet tall, gruff German man staring you down. And you're telling him to get the hell out of your way because your German accent is painfully, blatantly horrendous an he obviously thinks something is up and was asking weird questions and you really want out of the situation. You're standing there blinking up at his blondehair and blue eyes and boulder-sized muscles and you're talking like a bad ass in you German accent that sounds stupid falling from your lips and you suddenly realize that this is probably a bad idea. But you have no time to reconsider and make a new plan because big guy stomps his foot and says, "Nicht."

_Nicht._

No.

_Blinken._

Blink.

The palpebral portion of the orbicularis oculi muscle involuntarily closes the eyelids.

Blink.

The eyelids, or, the palpebrae.

One muscle, that's all. Not even the whole muscle.

Nicht? You ask. Who's asking stupid questions now. You are, that's who.

* * *

The Truth told me I would be allowed to keep living and then there was a dead jellyfish like a used up condom in the toilet bowl of my life and I"m thinking oh god, what did it do to me.

But that came later. After all. That wasn't the first... or second or third... time that I met up with the Truth. I'd say we were pretty good pals. That is, if we didn't have such a take-take relationship. Equivalent exchange, but neither of us ever seemed to really be giving anything.

I'm getting a lot of questions that I don't want to answer.

Have you ever thought about what you want your headstone to look like? You know, the one you'll see so much since you're dead and all? Oh, you do know? Good.

I think I've died way more than most people. But who's counting?

Al keeps asking me questions that I don't want to answer.

I say, okay, how about I do this like a bedtime story. I don't think I'm ready to tell you, but I'll tell you a little bit at a time. And I don't think I'm ready to tell him. But I will tell him a little at a time, whether I'm ready or not, because no matter what he deserves anything I can give him. And if it's what he wants. See that little bit that you read before? That was the first story I told him.

"The German sounds so funny coming from your lips," he says with a smile, trying to make light of a tense situation, and mask his disappointment in my disjointed retelling. It wasn't much, after all. His tongue rolls around the word 'German' like it's foreign and new. Because it is.

A graveyard is any place that is set aside for long-term burial of the dead.

I'm standing in front of my mother's grave now. I'm wondering if she's disappointed in me.

A graveyard is any place that is set aside for long-term burial of the dead. With or without headstones.

I think offhandedly that I must have always taken my mother's resting place for granted. It was nice here. Good scenery, a nice breeze, a comfortable, shading tree, and plenty of sun accomodated her final bed, that sounded pretty nice. There wasn't much noise, or drought, or too much rain, or the smell of burning flesh. That was always nice.

There's not much worse than getting burned alive. I mean, I've never been burned alive, since everyone burned alive is dead, but I've been burned... Bad. Story for another time?

Mom? I ask the air in front of me. Could you see me then? Was I getting what I deserved.

My mother doesn't say anything back.

I blink.

I say, that's what I thought, and then I start to walk home.

* * *

Winry is excited to see me, I can tell. She tries to hide behind how "angry" she is at me and threatens me with that wrench for a bit of humor but I'm not a kid anymore and I don't feel like a kid anymore and I'm not stupid. I can see that she's sad too. I don't know why she's sad. I'm just good at doing that to people, I guess, I always have been.

So I tell her, don't be so sad all the time, I hate it when I make you said.

She smiles, and that makes us both a little happier.

Even though I'm kind of angry that no ones angry with me.

Amnesia is a condition in which memory is disturbed or lost. There are two different types of amnesia, anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. With anterograde amnesia the ability to memorize new things is impaired or lost. Short term memory loss. You may find yourself constantly forgetting information, people, events, anything, after a few short seconds or minutes. This is because the data registered cannot transfer from their conscious short term memory into a more permanent long term memory. With retrograde amnesia, a person's pre-existing memories are lost to conscious recollection, beyond an ordinary degree of forgetfulness. They are able to memorize new things, but they cannot remember something in their prior life or experiences. If a doctor got ahold of Alphonse, they would probably say it was that latter that was conflicting him. However, I know that this isn't the case. His memories aren't just disturbed. This isn't amnesia.

The Truth took something from him. It took away those years of his life he suffered and gave him a second chance. Funny how my brother is fourteen again. Second time I've had to live through this.

Adolescence is a prime age.

I can't decide if I want Al to remember or not. I feel like there's a whole life-time that has just disappeared. I feel like he hardly knows me. He wasn't even sure it was me when I knocked on the door, he had to go get that picture to check. It makes me sad. At the same time, though, I don't want him to remember. I'm afraid. I'm afraid he'll hate me, hate me for what I put him through. I already made him have to go without a brother since he was eleven for a good three years. If he finds out what I put him through the last time he was... Well, eleven. Surely he won't be able to find it within himself to forgive me.

Wow. I just keep screwing up.

Failure – _a subnormal quality or quantity; an insufficiency. A person or thing that proves unsuccessful. Nonperformance of something due, required, or expected. An act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; lack of success. Deterioration of decay, especially of vigor, strength, etc._

Winry asks if I need a check up. I tell her they didn't have automail where I was, so yes, I do need a check up, and new automail. The first thing she does when I walk in there without my shirt is let out this little scream and follows it with a gasp, moving her hand up to her mouth.

The vibrations tumble from her lips and slide down my ear canal, through those little bones, and straight to my auditory nerve, and I'm thinking, oh god, what did I do this time.

I just keep screwing up.

Then Alphonse walks in and gasps his little brains out, and I'm having a moment of complete confusion.

Blink.

Al is in front of me now. I'm staring into his expressive gray eyes and waiting for some sort of accusation. He grabs my left arm and I don't feel any of it. He rips my hand up and its in front of my face now and I'm say, what? What are you doing?

"Why are you missing an arm,"

Oh, I say, no Al, I didn't get my limbs back when I got you back. It wasn't part of the deal.

Al looks sad and pensive for a moment, but then shakes his head. "I mean," he continues, "why are you missing both arms? Ed! What happened?"

Oh yeah, that's right.

Forgot they didn't know about that.

It's amazing how normal something like that becomes.

The memories come rushing back to me and I feel like crying or screaming or passing out or something. But here they are in front of me so those options are out of the question. A person can go mute or deaf or blind because of some sort of extreme trauma in their lifetime.

Blink.

Oh, I mutter, that.

"Ed..." Winry whimpers out my name like she's unsure about it. I look up and smile. Fake confidence.

_Blinken._

Blink.

So how about that check up? I've got three now so I'll have to pay you even more. Good news, huh? I bet you'll be glad to get your hands around whatever's left of my money right? I'm rambling a bit, because I want them to stop being sad because of me and just be happy because of them. I'm so ridiculous.

I just keep screwing up.

I'm getting a lot of questions I don't want to answer.

Nicht.


	3. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer: **_I definitely own Fullmetal Alchemist. Definitely. Definitely. You, know, I used to spell that word wrong all the time. Now I HATE it when people spell definitely wrong, but I think it's definitely like the most commonly misspelled word IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER! Don't you think? Anyway, I was just kidding, I definitely don't own FMA. Definitely.

_**A/N: **_Yeah, this is one of my favorite parts about the story. I know I'm mean. I'm sorry. The end of this is the first thing I ever wrote for this story and I've been waiting to put it in!

* * *

_**Chapter Two**_

The arm thing didn't go over so smooth. Not that I expected it to. Hey, I'm missing and arm, and another arm, and a leg, no big deal guys.

Not that I expected it not to be.

I'm getting a lot of questions I don't want to answer.

We have dinner that night and I pick at it and Al looks at me strangely. I suppose he's always been told stories about my eating habits. Winry's looking at me like she's seen a ghost. She hasn't heard stories, she's seen me eat before.

I look at the food and I think how much I'd really, really like to eat like I used to right now. But I can't anymore.

I like to think that with the amount of things I'm missing, that makes me just about under a half a human. Plus, you know, I'm a sadistic bitch who takes advantage of their family and screws up everything. Failure.

Do I think that about myself? Yes. Al doesn't think so. But look at him, he only knows a fourth of what I've done to him. He'd hate me.

Pigs are very close to humans, I've mentioned that before. We have the same organ structures, and almost the same skin. Sometimes burn patients get pig skin sewed onto their body and they get to say that they have pig skin stitched to themselves for the rest of their lives. I have pig skin stitched to me.

Eventually they can't say they _have_ pig skin stitched to them though. Because they have to say I _used to have_ pig skin stitched to me. It works with your body and even though that place will never fully heal, your own skin will want to take back over eventually. Not that they would say it. It doesn't seem like something to brag about. I know I haven't told much of anyone.

I _used to have _pig skin stitched to me.

Do you know why we dissect frogs in school when we're young? Because they're a lot like humans too. Plus it'll take a lot more to haul a bigger animal like a pig or a cat in there. More expensive too.

Vestigial Structures and Vestigial Organs are body structures that are considered to have been better developed and functional in the past but have now lost most or all of their function and some or most of their structure. Many people believe they were useful in ancestral species but are slowly phased out in modern animals. It is evolutionarily correct to get rid of unneeded baggage. Except sometimes you don't get rid of them, you keep them in the lost and found in your stomach. Your appendix is a vestigial organ. Your tail bone is a vestigial structure.

The muscles that make some people wiggle there ears are vestigial structures. That's right. At least now you know it's not your fault you can't do it and he can, you don't have the muscles for it. Unneeded baggage.

What aren't Vestigial Organs? Your intestines and your stomach aren't.

If all of my automail was off maybe I could hop around for a couple of moments.

Funny how everything seems to be measured in units of moments lately.

Are you thinking that I gave up my other arm to get back here?

You'd be wrong. Good guess though.

I would have, definitely, if I had an arm when I met the Truth that time. If he would have given me a choice. But as I already said, we have a take-take sort of relationship. Neither one of us never seems to really ever be giving anything. Equivalent exchange. An eye for an eye?

I've been in Amestris for half a year. I'm a quick healer and the surgery was emergency so there was no waiting period before the procedure.

Al is always worrying. You're DNA determines every little thing about you. Your hair, your eyes, what your favorite color will be, how big your capacity for unecessary worrying is. I tell Al he shouldn't worry about me, he always worries about me, and it's time he stopped. He says he can't remember worrying about me, so he needs to worry about me twice as much to make up for it. It didn't smile at this, I shook my head and sighed, he looked a little disappointed. Deoxyribonucleic Acid, DNA, told my eyes to be gold, my hair to be blonde, and my mind to like red. DNA is a lot like an alchemical equation, it's like a recipe, a code. It's got all the instructions that you're entire body needs to be a living, breathing little boy. The DNA segments that carry genetic information are called genes.

Chemically, DNA is made up of two long polymers that consist of simple units called nucleotides. Break down the structures of the nucleotides and you get sugar and phosphate groups joined by a hydrogen bond. These two strands run in opposite directions and form a double-helix shape. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of molecules called bases. The four bases are Adenine, Guanine, Thymine, and Cytosine. The sequences of these four bases are what code information. These codes are later read from the DNA and used throughout your body. A recipe. A code. An alchemical equation.

It all seems very similar to me.

Right now I'm sitting on the kitchen counter in my boxers and I'm sipping at some left-over stew I found in the fridge. It's the middle of the night so I try to be as quiet as I possibly can. I can't eat a lot at once anymore, but I still have to eat, so I eat in small portions throughout the day. I usually don't have too many problems. This stew tastes awesome and I realize it's been forever since I've had Granny Pinako's stew. Winry makes it just as good. Now I'm reminiscing too because when I got here I found out Pinako died only a few months before I returned.

I found her in the graveyard when I visited my mother.

Let's pretend.

You're sitting in the kitchen of a house that you haven't been in for three years, and you're trying to settle in a bit. You're eating stew that reminds you of a very dear woman who has passed away and you're okay with that, because there are happy memories there, you just hope she isn't as disappointed in you as you are. You're in your boxers and they're made of cotton and rubbing at the skin on your right thigh just a little bit more than you're comfortable with, so you move to adjust and your hand clenches too hard on this bowl in your grasp and it shatters.

That's the problem with automail, you really have to adjust and realize the amount of pressure you're using. You can't feel with the cold metal exterior and you have to judge things accurately to even stab your fork into a plate of food. You don't want to stab it right into the table or anything.

Right?

So you've been trying to keep extra quiet and now there's stew all over the floor and you're sure you must have woken your brother up because he's a very, very light sleeper and is constantly worrying about something or other. So you get up to at least clean up the stew, there's at least one problem that you can solve. But when your automail foot steps into the mess you suddenly feel it come out from under you and you think, god damn it, as you fall to the floor. You smell potatoes and milk as you fall and you think about how much you used to hate milk.

You have a sort of mutual relationship with it now.

But now's not a time to be thinking about milk, because you're falling and you're just a little bit distressed and you're thinking, oh god, what did it do to me. And the Truth said you would be allowed to keep living, and there's a condom in the toilet bowl that is your life because all the sudden there's this pain in your stomach and you know _exactly_ what that is and there's nothing you can do about it. Then you're kneeling on the floor in your stew with your hands clenched tight around your stomach and your puking onto the floor now because the pain in your abdomen is just too much and nothings moving right and you're thinking, oh god, what did it do to me, but the problem is you know what it did to you but you don't want your brother to find out.

But you can hear him coming down the stairs.

"Ed?"

Shit, you whisper, wiping your mouth with a quick jerk of your hand and crawling over to the counter to try to stand up.

Wait a second, we can stop pretending now, because this is happening right now. To me.

I look in the direction of the doorway and try to say, hold on a second Al, I'll be right there, so he doesn't come in and see this. But the moment I open my mouth to speak the bile rushes right up to the top of my throat and someone's stabbed a pitchfork right into my digestive system and twisted everything around. And now there's stew coming out of my mouth again in a great heap and I'm pretty sure that's the last of it, there's a little bit of dinner in there too. But then I start to dry heave and I feel like my chest is going to split in half but what I'm really worried about is Alphonse because I can here him walking over to the kitchen.

"Ed? Ed are you okay?"

I put my hand over my mouth and try to quiet down the heaves. But my muscles won't listen and my diaphragm just jerks up and down and tries to force everything out but there's nothing there in the first place so all there is is fire running up and down my insides. My hands won't listen and I can't feel where it's coming back down to the ground and I can't see because my eyes are clenched tight with pain now so I slip forward and I catch myself on one elbow in the middle of the kitchen floor. I hear Alphonse walk into the room now, and I try to force out some words between the heaves and the pain.

Al, I choke, go back to bed.

And I know it's stupid because he certainly won't go back to bed, and I'm kind of slipping in a pile of puke and stew and dinner and dry heaving my guts out and no ones going to just _go back to bed_ in a situation like this.

But I have to try to say something to him anyway. I can't help it.

"Oh my God! Brother!" Alphonse yelps, "Winry!" he calls her name because he's panicked and he's young and he doesn't know what to do. "Winry!"

I say, no, don't wake her up, I'm fine.

"You're not fine, look at you!"

I say, I can't, that's... But then I can't say anything else because my diaphragms having a seizure in my chest again.

Before I know it Winry's downstairs and she's holding my hair and rubbing my back and telling me that it's okay but I don't think it's okay. Not only is it not okay, but I'm being a huge burden. Failure. Failure. Failure. That's it.

I always sleep with my hair down.

I don't braid my hair anymore.

I suppose this brings us back to the organ thing again. It might not seem like it, but trust me, it does.

Vestigial Organs you can live without. You can live without some that aren't vestigial too. Like your large intestine.

Let me explain a little.

Imagine.

Colitis is a condition that causes inflammation and tearing of the colon. People that have colitis sometimes have Colectomies to remove the whole organ. The large intestine that is. Surgeons can use a section of the small intestine like a big "J" in your stomach that acts as a surrogate colon. But it's not as big as your large intestine. So you'll be taking that trip down the hall to your shiny porcelain throne a lot more often.

Your large intestine bursts and you've got this pain. A knife-in-your-stomach kind of pain, and it won't stop hurting. You can't stop going to the bathroom and all that's going down is this ugly pink mush that makes you think of pink, wispy silk covered in shit spinning down your toilet bowl like jellyfish to the bacteria-filled water pumping below. And there's a knife lodged in your stomach like a tack in a cork board and here's no blood but there's pain and there's shit covered sea creatures swimming down your toilet and you're thinking maybe, maybe this will just get better by itself. Usually you've got ulcerative colitis and it's undiagnosed and you don't know what to do but maybe it'll just get better by itself.

But I don't because I knew that it took something from me and I'm thinking maybe it'll get better by itself but then I've got this giant, dull tack shoved into my cork board of an abdomen and I'm thinking, oh god, what did it do to me? And my large intestine's burst and there's a knife in my gut and it's this stabbing, stabbing pain that doesn't stop, and silky shit covered scarves and swirling sea creatures.

And you're thinking, maybe it'll just get better by itself but your large intestines just becoming mush inside of you and your bodies becoming toxic. Toxic Mega Colon. Like some cheesy name for a villain in some action-hero book you read as a kid. Except a hundred times less cool. Toxic Mega Colon and your large intestines becoming mush inside of you. And you've got a fever and your heart is beating out of your chest because you've got Toxic Mega Colon and this means your large intestine got inflamed and infected and widened and burst and now it's turning to mush inside of you. And you're thinking, maybe this will all get better by itself.

But it won't and you finally get to a doctor and they take X-rays and run tests and you wonder idly through the haze of pain if this lead blanket is really helping anything at all. And you get shots and antibiotics and blood taken and there are blue and purple bruises painting your arms from all the times the fumbling new nurse screwed up. And you have a surgery, and your small intestine is your large intestine not too, this J-shaped surrogate organ like some sort of blown up balloon animal sitting in your stomach. And it's not perfect, oh no, and you've got a football sized wound, oh yes, that needs to heal and scar. And you'll be going to the bathroom a lot more and eating a lot less and say goodbye to food with seeds in it because seeds are a big no-no.

Did I get off subject a little?

Alphonse is always worrying.

Can you guess what I gave up to get back now?

That's right, did I forget to tell you how I lost my other arm?

Oh.


	4. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer: **_I do not own FMA and I do not have anything special to say. But apparently I can rhyme, so at least I've got something going for me.

_**A/N:**_ Seemed like this was never, _ever_ coming, didn't it. Sorry if this isn't as good as the other chapters, unless in the middle of this I have some great breakthrough and it ends up being pretty good, but I don't expect it to be. Because honestly, I'm having some trouble formulating how I'm going to tell the rest of the story I want to. And where exactly I want to end it. It isn't going to go on for much longer. Unless I get really long-winded and it does. In which case it will. Which it might. So I guess I can't really guarantee _anything at all. _And all of this author's note has been worthless. What I really mean is, I apologize for the lack of quality that is sure to be present in this chapter. There. I'm finished.

* * *

_**Chapter Three**_

The most expensive pillows are filled with goose down.

Pillows are stuffed primarily with polyester, feathers, down, or a combination of the latter two. The more down, the more expensive. Polyester is the least expensive. They are also the easiest to wash, if need be, and cause very few allergic reactions. There aren't many places where pillows are made in a factory here. Pillows were a lot less soft in Germany.

These pillows on my bed are handmade. I think that someday I would like to find the old lady who most likely spent hours putting this pillow together and give her my thanks, she probably deserved them.

I'm standing outside in the middle of a nice empty field and I scream.

I've been doing this for a while now. When I'm alone.

Usually, screaming is a defense mechanism. An automatic psychological response that protects and individual against anxiety and awareness of internal or external dangers. Or, sometimes, makes the person more aware of them. Defense mechanisms of this sort mediate the said individual's reaction to emotional and physical conflicts surrounding them. Humans are social animals. A scream is a defense mechanism that is also an automated alarm system that informs other humans that there is a need for help.

The last time I screamed and there was another human around me, no one was going to help.

Let's pretend. You're alone, in the middle of a field, and it's the dead of the night and you finally convinced everyone to _go back to bed_ after a little incident that you happened to have. They agreed only after conceding that you needed rest and you could talk about it in the morning. You have silently removed yourself from your bed, prayed to the God that you do not believe in that what happened only hours ago will not have a repeat occurrence, and traveled far enough from the house where the vibrations of your screaming will not reach the auditory nerves of your friend and brother. Then, with the tall grass swaying all around you in a rhythm you cannot follow, you scream. There are neurons in your spinal chord that connect to the twisting vines of your nervous system and these transmitters get the message from your body to "be afraid", to "fear", to "call for help", and you're screaming. Your vocal chords are rattling and the vibrations dance in the air around you and fly into your own ears. An endless recycling of your own empty anxiety, out your mouth and in your ears.

When you're done you breathe this big sigh of relief.

Then you scream again.

Let's stop pretending, I hate pretending.

Because now I'm going to tell you a story about something that led upto the moment you all are curious about. And then tomorrow, I'll tell Alphonse this story. Yes, that's right, I'm not exactly going to explain how I lost my other arm yet, but this is part of what happened before, you see, and you can't very well get to the climax of the story without a beginning to precede it. Can you? And because I might ask you to do some more pretending later, and I don't want to be _too_ dreadfully redundant.

Selectors on the ramps were given special orders to find twins, dwarfs, giants, or anyone else who had a unique hereditary trait. For instance, a club foot, or hetrochromia. See, I told you it was topical.

Protection of Jewish men and women while being a member of a Nazi regime may have been my downfall. Mind you, the second part of that was simply not my choice, when you are forced to do something you oftentimes have to do so. However, that position also afforded me many unique opportunities to betray the people who had fallen ill to this disease that was Nazism. But, as I was saying. The fact that I sheltered and helped move many Jewish people from one very dangerous place to another slightly less dangerous place may have been my downfall if _I_ had not ultimately become my downfall.

_Blinken._

Blink.

And imagine yourself blinking two golden eyes up at the doctor you had just met. When you had been visiting this camp called "Auschwitz" and were occupying yourself with the struggle of not-vomiting and not-screaming. The horrors were unspeakable, but the horrors I saw that day were not the last. And then imagine the doctor's own blue-eyed gaze lighting instantly up as he smiled this evil smile and says, "Du hast schӧne augen verlor mein junge,"

I can see the way I recoiled from him. He smelled, he looked, he radiated death and misery. Dr. Josef Mengele. I was afraid, good and truly afraid. I'd heard the stories, after all.

My commanding officer shakes his head, "Er ist in einer eigenartigen, aber er macht gute arbeit,"

I don't say anything at all. My vocal chords are crying and hiding under the covers. Shoving pillows filled with goose-down over their heads and wishing that this would all just go away.

The doctor takes my commanding officer aside and whispers something to him. It all happens so fast and before I know it he's smiling at me and everyone's leaving. I go to leave and there's a harsh shove to my shoulder. I stumble back because I don't have the best balance. My dad's created a sort of half-automail half wooden limb device to work well enough for a leg with the technology from this world, but it still lacks in most of every way. Some blue-eyed blond-haired German man tells me in an amused hiss, "Du bleibst hier."

The first thing I think of to say is, no, no I'm not. _Nicht._

"Ja, sie sind."

No, no, no,_nicht_, I say again. But before I know it.

Blink.

And everyone's gone.

Blink. Again. For good measure. Maybe I can blink this away.

But no one comes back for me. And yes, yes I am staying here.

Those transmitters in my spine are screaming at me to "be afraid", to "fear", to "call for help", and I feel like screaming. There's a hand on my shoulder and a voice in my ear then.

"Mach dir keine sorgen," this doctor that reeks of death says. And now I do scream. Because I can't help it. My body's taking over, and I am going to worry. I am. Because I'm so, so afraid. He chuckles, "Mach dir keine sorgen." he repeats. Like that helps at all.

It was my birthday the day I received the German army's "invite". I glanced once over the draft letter and thought about how I'd have to thank good old dad for getting my files all into the system. Thanks dad, for sending me off to war.

He had thought that it was the only way to get a respectable job for myself, whereas I had thought I had already been in that world for far too long.

The Truth told me that I would be allowed to live and then there was this used condom in my toilet bowl of a life and there was blood and shots and pain and golden rods and Gods and emptiness.

Screaming is the worst sound in the world to become accustomed to hearing.

I was one of the oldest people there. Megele's children, they called them, and apparently I was included in that little category of helpless victims. Matyrs for all the hatred and horrors that sat in that sadistic man's mind.

There are many reasons for amputation: circulatory disorders such as Sepsis with peripheral necrosis or gangrene, neoplasm, by which I mean cancerous bone or soft tissue tumors, melanoma, fribrosarcoma, osteosarcoma, epithelioid sarcoma, sacrococcygeal teratoma, and so on. Deformities in digits or limbs, or extra limbs or digits: polydactyly. Infection, such as a bone infection, like osteomyelitis, or again, gangrene. Or by trauma. A method in which I am particularly experienced in. Severe limb injuries, traumatic amputations occurring at the scene of an accident, such as being trapped with no other option.

Finally, there was punishment and torture.

How did a person with only two regularly functioning limbs serve well enough to be acknowledged in the German army.

Well, imagine this.

You're a genius.

You can stop imagining now.

You can complement my modesty, but I honestly do not mean to brag. I've been through the gate so many times that enough information has been stuffed into my head to flood the world. It's not meant as a term of endearment towards myself. Let's say you were forced to be a genius. It doesn't sound all that bad, right? But sometimes it is.

There was a fuel shortage in Germany during World War II. Before the war started, Germany was primarily an energy-dependent nation. It depended very heavily on the import of foreign fuels. The annual amount of millions of barrels of fuel produced within Germany as a total in this time was around 13, while the amount imported from foreign countries was approximately 32. This obvious shortage did not get any better when the amount of Allied bombing increased and centered often around fuel plants.

I was working to solve synthetic fuel problems. The production of synthetic fuels was a good and promising alternative. And many people marveled at the way I managed to find creative, inventive ways to make a little bit of fuel go to extreme and nearly impossible lengths. One of the problems with the synthetic fuels however, was the low octane number. Without a presence of a high amount of octane in the fuel the German's were at an extreme disadvantage, and simply finding ways to increase the number of octane in the synthetic fuels was enough to have me set for the war. I also didn't have to be included in a lot of fighting. Now see me with all this scientific equipment around me. It would be a lot easier to find a way home with this country's sciences if I had a job that afforded me these sort of advanced tools.

Endurance was important to Megele. He had this strange fascination with seeing how far he could push someone through pain until they cracked.

A person can go deaf or blind or mute because of some sort of extreme trauma in their lifetime.

Everyday your blood was drawn. One arm, both arms, fingers, wherever they could fit a needle in and suck you dry. I'd never felt so faint constantly, but I pushed through it, tried to walk a little straighter everyday, a little taller. In retrospect, I think my resilience piqued his interest in me, and I might have done better to draw less attention to myself. But I never had been able to keep my temper.

Measurements were the worst part. I gave about as much hell as I could give. And they beat me about as much as they could. It took several hours for measurements to be finished. You had to undress and lay side by side while every part of your anatomy was recorded and analyzed. I wonder if the child lying next to me was scared I was dead. Not just unconscious.

Drops. Injection. Chemicals. Pain. Infections. Temporary blindness. Permanent blindness. Amputations.

Gold and God-like. Perfect.

I walked back to the house when my scream ended. I'm trying not to trip. All I want to do is get back to that goose-down pillow.

* * *

_**A/N: **Finally_ updated. I'm not really that happy with it but whatever. It's getting harder and harder to write. Only a couple of chapters left though. This probably told you just about everything that Ed did back on Earth. So I at least addressed that. Hope it was okay. :)


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